


On The Edge Of Night

by zulu



Category: House M.D., Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M, for:roga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-15
Updated: 2009-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 13:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not a no-win scenario.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Edge Of Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roga/gifts).



> Written for roga. Fusion with Star Trek Reboot. Thanks to thedeadparrot for the beta.

**On the Edge of Night**

"House, you can't do this," Wilson hisses, rushing after him with the prissy almost-run that means he's trying to be inconspicuous. House strides ahead, his leg not so much as twitching under Starfleet Medical's latest example of a neural block. He chomps down on his apple and grins at Wilson through a mouthful of pulp. "Can," he gloats.

"You can't _cheat_ the Kobayashi Maru and expect to get away with it!"

House wrinkles his nose. "Stop being a party-pooper, Wilson. No one's going to find out."

Wilson rolls his eyes, but he peels away from House before they reach Starfleet Headquarters. "I am not a part of this," he says, raising his hands defensively. "I don't want to know."

House tosses his apple core away in a sideways flick of his hand. Wilson will come around, once House _has_ gotten away with it, and House will happily spend a night drinking Wilson's booze and lying his head off about how he did it.

-

Okay, so he wasn't exactly expecting the full court-martial.

Wilson's in the audience, glaring; House can feel the heat of it on the back of his head. Captain Cuddy is sitting at the judge advocate general's table, her eyes burning just as hotly.

House never really wanted to piss her off. Three years ago, Cuddy recruited him fresh off the farm truck, drunk and hungover from his last screaming match with Stacy.

"Yeah, the phaser-happy space jocks really want a cripple on the command track," House had sneered. The nanites had more or less knitted his muscles back together, but Starfleet's not too fond of cyborgs either--something about going evil and running amok.

"You're worth more than your leg to us," Captain Cuddy snapped, throwing a tri-ox hypo at him. "Sober up and you might find you actually have something to offer the Federation."

"God, the war with the Klingons must be going to _shit_ if you're recruiting _me_," House said, his stomach twisting at the offer she's dangling, even though after the force-whip accident he'd firmly shoved away any thought of joining up, finding new life and new civilizations, and then killing them. Or getting killed _by_ them--House is never going to live up to a father who rammed the Kelvin into some weird space storm to save hundreds of lives. A fucking brainless accomplishment that his mom wants him to _live up to_, as if she thinks he'd be better off space dust than he is right now.

"The shuttle leaves at 0800," Captain Cuddy said. "Maybe you'd like to show the space jocks what a cripple can do."

House denies to everyone that it was something about the way her smile was almost gentle that saw him limping aboard the shuttle, tossing away the keys to his bike two steps before strapping in.

And now he's standing at the defendant's podium, in full dress uniform, the starched collar scraping his neck every time he turns his head. He doesn't know who the hell tracked down his programming changes to the Kobayashi Maru, but he's confident no one can prove a damn thing.

Until the door at the back of the courtroom cheeps open, and a Vulcan strides in.

"Shit," House mutters, refusing to let his shoulders hunch. The Vulcan's staring at him with what, on anybody else's face (and House has seen this on more than his share of faces) he'd call a distinctly peeved expression. Maybe he looks implacable to the rest of the cadets, but House can tell this Vulcan's got something different to him, like maybe a badly-hidden button House can actually push.

He leers at the Vulcan and starts to slouch, getting as comfortable and as _human_ as he can possibly manage without--quite--crossing the line into gross insubordination.

"Cadet House, this is our Kobayashi Maru programmer, Commander Foreman," Captain Cuddy says.

"Doesn't look like he programmed it that well," House says, bringing his tried and true look of innocence to his defense.

Foreman's nostrils flare, he slaps his padd down on the plaintiff's podium, _peeved_ inches its way up to _irked_, and that's when the fun really begins.

-

"Come _on_," House says--fine, _whines_. "You get assigned as the chief medical officer on the Enterprise and I'm left on Earth like a fucking first-year cadet?"

"Yes," Wilson explains with an exasperated eyeroll, "that's because I have eight years' training in xenobiology and _you_ told the Enterprise's first officer that he couldn't program a game of three-dimensional chess. _At your own court-martial_."

"That was a misunderstanding," House says, as airily as he can considering this time he's the one chasing Wilson through the chaos of a thousand cadets all rushing to board their assigned shuttles. House spares a sneer for the morons assigned to the Farragut. Anything less than the flagship means you're not the best, and House _is_ the best. "You can get me on board. I know you can."

Wilson stops short and wheels on him. "House, maybe I don't _want_ you on board! All of Vulcan is under attack, who the hell knows by whom! They could board--"

House fixes him with his best glower. "What, a Klingon coming after me with a bat'leth? Please. I know how to hold a phaser. And the _point_ of my being there is that it _won't_ come to hand-to-hand."

"Yeah, because you're practically a Federation ambassador."

"No, because I know what the hell is going on!"

"You really think it's the same thing that destroyed the Kelvin." Doubt creases Wilson's forehead, but he presses his lips together thoughtfully. House forces himself not to exult because he's totally just won. He's pulled more right solutions out of his ass during his three years at Starfleet Academy than luck could account for, and Wilson knows it. "Give me your neural block."

House's hand goes automatically to his thigh. "No."

Wilson tilts his head. "Do you want on board or not?"

House's hand clenches without his permission. Wilson's asking a hell of a lot, but then, he knows it, the bastard. Maybe House can't go as far as taking off the neural block himself.

Yeah, and maybe he doesn't deserve to be a Starfleet captain.

He switches the block off--agony _screams_ up his leg once his brain realizes how much his leg actually _hurts_\--and then he's collapsing against Wilson, only dimly hearing him calling for a anti-grav pallet and a hypo.

-

On the upside, he wakes up on the Enterprise. With the neural blocker once again doing what it's supposed to, veiling the pain from his forebrain. House grins to himself. _Score_.

With a quick shove, he's off the biobed and heading for the bridge.

-

The problem is, "You morons are flying into a _trap_," turns out _not_ to be the phrase that's the key to Captain Cuddy's heart.

"How did you get on board my ship?" she says.

That's so not the point, and House rolls his eyes to let her know. "It's the same thing that came after the Kelvin! It destroyed forty-seven ships in Klingon space--"

"Where is your proof?" Commander Foreman demands, his ears seeming to get more pointed with each passing second that Captain Cuddy doesn't toss House out on his ass. "There is no logic in assuming that a phenomenon that occurred at the edge of the Beta Quadrant is now assaulting Vulcan."

"Actually--"

All three of them turn to the communications officer. Thirteen spins her chair around to face them, calmly wide-eyed. House refuses to do a double-take: he's got his pride to think of. But he can't exactly help the fact that a sound not unlike _erk_ gets stuck in his throat. The night they met she was nearly as drunk as he was, and she was _clearly_ going out of her way to see what a Starfleet cadet in action could do, but somewhere between his first Saurian brandy and his second shot of kanar, she walked out with an Orion girl.

It stung, but what's worse is that in three years she's never once told him her real name. Calling her by the number of shots she matched him for does well enough.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" Commander Foreman asks, and House shoots a glare at him--that damn Vulcan seems to think he's not emoting all over the ship, but House refuses to let any alien get away with being inscrutable to humans, and there's _fondness_ underneath the (in Foreman's case) very thin veneer of logic.

"I intercepted that message from the Klingons," Thirteen says. She pins House with a stare (and he doesn't exactly try to wriggle free). "Cadet House is right."

Well, she's not all bad.

Captain Cuddy nods curtly and takes her place in the center of the bridge, sitting in her chair, checking her board for the ship's all-clear, and crosses her legs like she's at a Sunday picnic. Maybe it's really not the moment to be noticing her legs. "Take us out, Mr. Chase."

Chase nods, appropriately solemn, and punches the ship to warp seven.

And Vulcan's in front of them, surrounded by the shattered fleet.

-

"Captain, I cannot condone your plan to turn yourself over to the Romulan," Foreman says.

House has never heard anything so pompous in his life, and Foreman's not even the first Vulcan he's met. "I can," he says. It's one of the worst plans he's ever heard of, actually, but: "Very becoming of a Starfleet officer. Who did you say got to be captain while you're pointlessly risking your life?"

Cuddy glares at him. "It's not pointless, House." She turns to Foreman, a look of concern on her face. "I am buying time for the evacuation of Vulcan, Mr. Foreman, a plan of action that I expect you must approve of."

Foreman nods at this, reluctantly. "The good of the many..." he starts, sounding like House's second year ethics class, also known as the best nap hour the Academy ever instituted.

"Oh, if you really believed that, you'd _condone_ her going just fine," House snaps.

"Captain, I would advise keeping Cadet House in the brig until we have dealt with the Romulans..."

"No." Cuddy stops at the door to the shuttlebay. She looks back and forth between them and then shakes her head, rolling her eyes like even she can't believe she's about to say this. "Mr. House was right about the nature of the enemy, and has some understanding of what we're facing here. I'm appointing him as first officer. You will be acting captain."

If he can't be captain himself, first officer is still a step up from prisoner. House refrains from turning to Foreman with a smirk and an "In your _face_," but only just. After all, there _is_ a planet at stake.

The fact that Foreman's expression is closer to apoplexy than to 'calm study in logic' really helps a lot.

-

"So what's her name?" House asks, sprawling in Ensign Cameron's chair and considering whether Lieutenant Chase will be upset if House uses his seat as a footstool while Chase is off on an orbital skydive to an atmospheric drilling platform. (Enjoy Adventure: the best recruitment strategy Starfleet ever used.)

"That is hardly an appropriate topic of conversation during a red alert," Foreman grits out.

"Aww, and here I thought we had an acting-captain/acting-first-officer relationship," House says, with his most winning smile. "You can tell me anything."

"My planet is under attack, my people are in danger, and I am currently calculating the degree to which we might anticipate Captain Cuddy will be able to withstand the Romulans' torture," Foreman says. "I am afraid it would not be logical to devote any extra energy to enduring your senseless taunts."

House pouts.

-

_Possibly_ he should have seen Foreman's power trip coming.

"Regrouping? That's the best you've got? You're going to be sorry when you're _wrong_." House doesn't really care that Foreman just up and rescued a dozen of Vulcan's elders in a daring away mission (the kind, House thinks bitterly, that you can't send a cripple on), but he _does_ care that Foreman's been heating up closer to the boil every time House gets in his face.

There's not much House can do when Foreman reports the Vulcans are safe, except for his human mother (that explains a lot); there's _nothing_ he can do when Vulcan implodes in front of all their eyes, millions of lives lost, and Captain Cuddy still prisoner.

He tries his best to lead a mutiny over Foreman's calm insistence that Security deposit him in a lifepod and eject him from the ship, but somehow the rest of the crew seemed disinclined to chase Nero to Earth.

When Security comes, House shakes them off and settles himself in the lifepod, already grinding his teeth and trying to think of the fastest way off Delta Vega.

-

Still, he doesn't expect escape to come in the form of Foreman's senior-citizen self.

"You've got to be kidding me," House says, still sitting on his ass where he was knocked by a gigantic ice dragon.

Foreman's older self just stares at him blandly. All that teeth-gritting anger that simmers under his younger self's skin seems to be absorbed into the impassive, indifferent, self-assured arrogance with which he regards House in the flickering torchlight. There's something distinctly weird about it, and House has the strange sensation that the fondness he saw in younger-Foreman's eyes is now (however obliquely) being directed at him. Which is just _wrong_.

"I don't kid," he says, and House believes _that_. "Let me show you."

Nodding suspiciously, House scrambles to his feet--even through the neural block he's feeling an edge of discomfort from the chase and the cold--but Foreman doesn't take his hand or try to help him. Good. One reason House can be grateful for a touch-telepath's restraint.

Before he's steady, though, Foreman lifts a hand to touch the mind-meld points on his temple and jaw. House grits his teeth, but there's another voice erasing his tension, _my mind to your mind_. Something greater than himself seems to rise up and envelop him, until he spins and falls without losing his balance, _my thoughts to your thoughts_.

He squints at old-Foreman when it's over. "_Seriously_?"

Foreman tilts his head, and yeah, that's definitely _fondness_, buried much more successfully under layers of _I am better than you_ than young-Foreman ever managed, but about as obvious as the ice-dragon now that House knows what to look for.

Wilson's really not going to believe this.

-

Lieutenant Commander Kutner's eyes are so wide that House wants to tuck them carefully back into their sockets. "Transwarp beaming? That is _so cool_," he says.

"It's your idea," Foreman says, not a little peevishly--House smirks, because after a peek inside Foreman's brain it's impossibly blatant how much he hates giving credit when none of it is for him. "In the future."

Kutner blinks at Taub, and the little gnome shrugs back. Kutner breaks out in the biggest grin this side of the Delta Quadrant, and before House can formulate an objection, his molecules are being sent packing across half a dozen parsecs.

-

All he has to do then is piss Foreman off.

Apparently, his talents really _do_ suit the Starfleet life.

When threats and taunts don't work, there's only one thing left to try. "I get it now," House says in a de sotto aside to Thirteen on his way off the bridge. "Human and alien--you swing both ways. His mom must've been the same way. You're lucky you get the package deal."

Something distinctly non-Vulcan breaks behind Foreman's eyes. House isn't _sorry_\--he doesn't do sorry. But he doesn't fight very hard (not that he could) when Foreman leaps on him with a barely-repressed roar. Then his body's crushed under Foreman's weight, his breathing cut off by Foreman's hand clenching around his throat. He wonders if Foreman can feel anything of his mind through his skin and the hammering of his heart, but before he has to think too hard about it, Chase and Cameron are yanking Foreman off of him.

"Not quite as logical as you thought, Mr. Foreman?" House says, narrowing his eyes and watching with something like fascination the fury in Foreman's eyes.

But Foreman reigns himself in. "You are correct," he says. "I am emotionally compromised. I must cede control of the ship to yourself." A pause, and then: "_Captain_," Foreman says, and it _costs_ him to say that, which House appreciates on many different levels, not least of which is the tensing of Foreman's considerable Vulcan strength underneath his immaculate uniform.

Still, House rolls his eyes. It's just not as much fun this way.

-

"So you're really not going to tell me her name?" House asks, on their way to the transporter room.

"No," Foreman says curtly.

House considers that for a few more paces, and then: "Are you two still waiting for ponn farr so it can be special, or have you tapped that?"

Foreman stares him down, with a hint of his older self's implacable reserve. "Aren't you concerned about Captain Cuddy?"

House blinks. If _this_ Foreman knew a single thing about him, he'd know that Captain Cuddy is the _first_ thing on his mind--whether she's all right, whether she's even _alive_\--which is why he'd rather think about Thirteen in the first place. Foreman arches an eyebrow, and then he snorts, nodding slightly.

Fucking Vulcans.

The transporter room doors swish open, and Thirteen steps in. She takes two light steps up to Foreman, cups his cheeks in her hands, and gives him a brief kiss. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Remy," Foreman says.

House scoffs from his transporter pad. _That's_ what he's been waiting for? "Remy? No wonder you like Thirteen better."

Thirteen raises an eyebrow at him. Without a word, she turns to Foreman and kisses him, deep and lingering. Before she leaves the transporter room, she gives House a smile that's far more promising than he's ever gotten before. And, just before Foreman tells Ensign Cameron to engage, he matches Thirteen's smile with an enigmatic hint of his own, all the while looking straight ahead.

Beaming onto an enemy ship to rescue Captain Cuddy from a hundred Romulan soldiers doesn't seem so bad when House has that smile to puzzle out.

-

Of course, it helps that Cuddy is well-versed in kicking alien ass halfway around the known galaxy.

"How the hell did you manage to get free!" House snaps, his daring rescue deflated by meeting Cuddy almost before they'd worked their way to the _Narada's_ cargo hold.

Cuddy favours him with a sinister smile. "I have my ways."

Foreman glances at him. House glances back. He thinks they agree: Cuddy is damn scary. It's the first time he's felt like they're on the same wavelength, mind meld or no.

"Well, _fine_," he snits, and Foreman's all-too-human amusement touches his mind like an echo.

After that, it's simply a matter of blowing the Romulans to red-mattered smithereens.

-

Once again coerced into his dress uniform, House hunches and shifts against the itch of his collar.

"Stop fiddling," Wilson mutters beside him. "They're making you captain, the least you can do is act like it."

"Actually, there's a lot less I can do," House shoots back. Going out of uniform, for a start. A glance at the stripes on his cuffs is more than mollifying, though.

"I hear Commander Foreman's going to be reestablishing the Vulcan civilization on a new colony," Wilson says, as if that's supposed to make House _forget_ about the boring, irritating, _stupid_ ceremony he's going to have to stand through. He grunts, and Wilson eyes him like he's turned into a Klingon.

It doesn't hurt to have a good chunk of the Academy watching when Admiral Cuddy comes forward to offer him his commission as captain of the Enterprise. Foreman's not among them but House doesn't care.

When it's over, the first thing House does is rip his collar open before heading for the doors. He's looking down, limping more than he should with the neural block in place, and when he looks up, Foreman's standing in front of him.

"I spoke to my elder self," he says, blocking House's way.

House _really_ doesn't care. A lot. "Yeah?" he says.

"He assures me that you and I will be good for each other," Foreman says. "And that he will be doing what he can for the Vulcan colony."

"So what?"

Foreman gives him the flat stare--the same flat stare as always. The too-Vulcan stare that doesn't show what the hell his human half is thinking. "So I am willing to come back to the Enterprise."

"You think I still need a first officer?"

"I know you do."

He's right, of course. House tries to curl his lip, but he wouldn't be surprised if Foreman can read him better than he ever did before, through the mind meld's echo.

"Whatever," he says, because if nothing else, he's the soul of grace when he's giving in to the inevitable. "As long as Thirteen's there too."

 

_end_


End file.
